Friday, February 28, 2014

Given all the belt-tightening and stealth HST-type tax shifting going on around here (see Hydro/ICBC/MSP cash grabs, for example), what would the Snooklandians do if they had an extra $120 mill or so floating around free?

Would they use it to take fare of that BC Ferries operating shortfall?

Would they use it to put more special needs teachers in classrooms?

Would they use it help cash-strapped school boards to actually, you know, heat schools?

Well, because there are, it would appear, cronies to be taken care of.

How do we know this?

Because one of the cheerleaders for said cronies, a very fine publication called 'Energy Global' tells us it is thus:To stimulate job creation and industry growth in the oil and gas sector, British Columbia will make available $120 million in royalties for new road and pipeline projects under the Infrastructure Royalty Credit Program (IRCP).

New investments in infrastructure projects will increase industry’s access to abundant resource areas, and support work in exploration and production, providing well-paying jobs and business opportunities in northeast British Columbia...Surprised?

________But, some of you might be saying to yourselves... It is the cronies in the resource sector that are generating all that preSparklePony revenue around here that is keeping us afloat right now, isn't it?....Well....Actually, as Norm Farrell has demonstrated by actually looking at real government revenue numbers....No.Tip-O-The-Touque toPremier 'B' on the Twittmachine for the heads-up on the clarion call of cheerleader...

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

____Feb 7th Late Winter Update....Here's the thing...I keep trying to let this thing slide off the bottom of the page...But you all keep hitting the play button at the rate of more than two thousand times a day!....Which means that total listens so far are now, get this, 186,313....Imagine that!

Below is his lede and a little bit more, but I highly recommend you go read the entire thing (me, I'm combing through the attached FOI material myself at the moment):

Emails between top-level BC civil servants show Premier Clark’s 100,000 LNG jobs were based on dubious assumptions thrown together at the last minute for her 2013 throne speech. Were those civil servants working for the public interest or Clark’s election campaign?...

{snippety doo-dah}

...Were the Prosperity Fund and the job claims (i.e. the sparkle ponies) part of an elaborate election ploy? It wouldn’t be the first time a government made an election promise it didn’t intend to keep. A more troubling possibility, though, is that Provincial public service employees and public funds were used to create that election ploy, contrary to the BC Standards of Conduct that govern what civil servants can do while on the job. Documents recently obtained by Focus through an FOI, and our independent analysis of a consultant’s report done for the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Natural Gas days before Premier Clark announced the Prosperity Fund in February 2013, suggest that might be the case...

(sparkly stuff in brackets, above, mine)

Which, once again, has me wondering...

Is there anything that these people do and say that is actually on the up-and-up and not just an exercise in political expediency?

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The lead negotiator for government in the B.C. teachers' collective bargaining process was surprised by the union's strike vote announcement this morning, especially because the union has yet to reveal its own salary counter-offer.

"[The union] does have an obligation to put their position forward for public discussion," Peter Cameron, the government-appointed director and lead negotiator for the BC Public School Employers Association, told reporters. He added the union has dropped some hints about where it's going as far as wage increases, and says it's "extreme."

"It’s going to be a position that's going to be hard to justify in the public. So it's one thing to criticize our opening position, and it's another thing to hide behind what I actually consider to be rhetoric and not present your own initial position into the debate."...

Ya.

Sure thing Mr. Cameron.

After all, why should you and yours have to openly and publicly justify your position to ignore crazy-assed rhetoric like, say, a court decision?

_____Rather than his mouthpiece you can hear Mr. Fassbender blather on, in Snooklandian-approved pseudo-presser fashion (just like Canucks TeeVee!)... Here.Subheader?....Well, you know....This.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Vaughn Palmer, as only he can do, kinda/sorta (but not quite/not really) recently called out the Snooklandians on their plans to make sure that rural British Columbia will get an even bigger proportion of the electoral representation pie as populations increase everywhere else in the province.

So.

What did the Dean offer up as the possible whys and wherefores that have led to this latest bit of democratic bait-and-switcheroo by the Crony party?

Well....

There is, apparently the possibility that 'sentiment' is behind it all:

...“We don’t need any more politicians!” is the cry from many a member of the public, every time government appoints a commission to reconcile electoral boundaries with a growing population.

Mindful of that sentiment, the Liberals, in setting out the mandate for the commission that will redraw the boundaries in time for the next provincial election, have dictated that it cannot expand the number of house seats beyond its current bursting-at-the-seams 85...

...“The aim of this bill is to preserve representation in the legislative assembly for northern and rural regions of the province that are most at risk of losing seats in the next electoral boundary revision process,” as Justice Minister Suzanne Anton put it when she introduced the legislative amendments to the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act...

Sure thing - this despite the fact that, for example the North currently has half the population of Surrey and the same number of seats.

Well then...

How about a zen-like 'balance' that only a legal genius like Suzanne Anton can possibly achieve:...“It is challenging to balance urban and rural representation in a province as large and diverse as British Columbia,” as the government said in justifying its latest legislative move...Except isn't the 'balance', right now, pretty much ass-over-tea-kettle 'rural' (see above)?

Well then...

Perhaps after all that we should let Mr. Palmer get right down to it:...(The Liberals say they are doing this) because the house is already big enough, but suspicions focus on the 17 protected (rural) seats. Eleven are currently held by the government, only six by the NDP...Now.

That sure looked like a knockout punch, right?

Well, not really.

Because the pullback comes on Mr. Palmer's very next passage:...Still, one should note that the NDP took eight of those seats in the 2009 election, so the balance would not necessarily favour the government in the long run...

Repeating...

The Dean has concluded, by looking at just the last two election cycles, that 'the balance would not necessarily favour the government in the long run'.

The new chair of the B.C. government's Multicultural Advisory Council, Tenzin Dargyal Khangsar, courted ethnic voters for the Conservatives while working as an aide to federal Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney, whose portfolio is now Employment, Social Development and Multiculturalism.

A high level political player, Khangsar was instrumental in creating the Vancouver-based Canada Korea Foundation (CKF) -- a troubled project that sheds light on Conservative strategies to foster new ethnic organizations friendly to the Harper government...

Now.

Please note that this is government rather than a caucus-type and/or partyish council.

So.

If, say, the Premier's office was to go to 'council' with a 'strategy'...

Got a bit of a shocker when I opened an envelope at work the other day.

Why?

Because tucked out of the way, up the the top right corner it noted the earliest date that I can voluntarily retire (and we're talking real early, at least in financial terms) is...

November 1, 2014.

Which is scary enough to contemplate all on it's own.

And then I thought of the first two lines of this...

______Why real early?...Well, because when you're in the line of science-geekery that I'm in the apprenticeship process (a.k.a. post-docking) doesn't usually end until your mid-thirties...And while our pension plan is good (and please do not misunderstand me - I am in no way even in the slightest complaining about my level of compensation) it is a defined contribution-type deal...Which means that the total time in really matters...Anyway...My hair really is grey...And I do ache a little (sometimes a lot, actually) in the places where I used to play...Ironically, of course, it would appear that the estimable Mr. Cohen, who has probably drawn just about even with Mr. Williams by now, may never retire...

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Instead, I'm talking about Mr. Harper's concerted effort to take his message 'directly' to the people each week.

Marc Weisbott of Postmedia has both the story and the numbers.

Here's his lede:Stephen Harper’s weekly wrap-up debuted at the start of January as something a leader wary of the news media could live with: Rather than depend on reporters to explain what he has been up to, the Prime Minister’s Office would issue their official video version, with the title 24 Seven.

Well, now that the project has gone into its second month without being cancelled, it is sort of possible to measure just how much public interest there is in watching this old-fashioned narrated newsreel format — which is dominated by meta-footage of the PM posing with others at photo ops.

The debut gained enough attention to draw over 10,000 viewers of the English-language version, which dipped to under 8,000 in the second week, under 3,500 in week three...

Gosh.

3,500 partakers a week.

Hmmmm....

I wonder how many weekly listens we're getting with no staff, no promotion, and no budget for our late winter jukebox tunes.

Hang on a second while I go check...

There you have it... 3,711 plays in the last week.

And that's for just one tune.

In aggregate, last week the little clutch of songs and the latest Sunday Setlist garnered almost 14,000 listens....And the Advent Jukebox still had more than 10.

Ten thousand that is.

So.

No matter how you slice it, there is no denying that the 'direct-to-you' offerings of this little F-Troop-list blog were seven times more popular than Mr. Harper's attempts to go direct to his base last week.

...Meanwhile, we have to suffer through Pierre Poilievre, who addresses Canadians in the same offensive manner as he goads opposition MPs in the House, pretending that the Fair Elections Act (even the name is goading, isn’t it?) – which the Conservatives rammed through Parliament (no doubt as a result of Andrew Prescott being granted immunity for his robocalls testimony) – is for us.

Did you know that Pierre Poilievre used to run a robocall business?...

Mary Ellen Macintyre of the Halifax Chronicle Herald has the story. Here's her lede:

SYDNEY — The war chest has been hauled up from the basement, ready to be used to help defeat the federal Conservative government, say local war veterans.

“The plan is to build a war chest so we can have money to do the things we need to do to make sure this government falls,” said Ron Clarke, a veteran who spearheaded the now-failed campaign to keep Sydney’s Veterans Affairs office open.

Clarke, a 36-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, told members of the province’s standing committee on veterans affairs in Sydney on Monday that vets across the country believe now is the time for action.

“What we’re going to try to do is create a veterans war chest in each of the provinces … and when this is over, any money left over will go into veterans organizations, like the legions or something else,” he said following his submission to the committee...

The other day we noted that even an apparent dyed-in-the-new-wool conservative by the name of Rick Peterson can see the Snooklandian's never ending MSP premium increase for what it really is - the worst kind of regressive tax grab.

But that's nothing compared to this, as noted by Rob Shaw in the VSun:Tuesday’s 2014-15 provincial budget predicted $8.9 billion in net income by 2016-17 from Crown corporations to help the Liberal government balance its books.

That includes $1.23 billion in dividends from BC Hydro over the next three fiscal years, and $480 million of “excess optional capital” from ICBC during the same period...

And where is all that revenue coming from?

Why from tax.....errrrr....rate increases, of course!

ICBC raised basic insurance rates by 4.9 per cent in November, and Hydro rates are set to go up 28 per cent over the next five years, adding hundreds of dollars to the annual bills of most British Columbians...

I'm telling you.

Sometimes it really does seem like Martyn and Gordon are still crouched behind their shiv-laden curtain hidden beneath the gossamer-winged shroud of the puffed-up punditry while the cronies out back continue to feverishly carve up the carcass of the middle class with impunity.

BC Conservative Leadership candidate Rick Peterson today said that the BC Liberal budget underscores the need for serious and substantial tax fairness reform in British Columbia, a key plank in his BC Conservative Leadership campaign.

“Taxes impact people differently” said Peterson, a Vancouver businessman, “and it’s important to keep that in mind when looking at a budget like this one.

“Income taxes factor in your ability to pay, whereas consumption taxes typically provide you with a choice. MSP fees largely ignore both of these principles of tax fairness, which is why they are so very lethal.”

Peterson pointed out that the Liberal budget’s projected $184 million surplus for next year comes largely from a $115 million increase in Medical Service Premiums.

“When you consider that a low income family earning $ 31,000 a year is being asked by the Clark government to pay the same $138.50 per month as Jimmy Pattison, it’s no wonder BC leads Canada in child poverty..."

Monday, February 17, 2014

The Eagle River Casino, majority owned by the Alexis First Nation, northwest of Edmonton, is in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings aimed at allowing the casino to continue operating while it restructures its debt.

Bankruptcy trustee documents obtained by CBC News show the casino, located about 10 kilometres west of Whitecourt on Highway 43, owes about $100 million and has assets of about $57 million...

{snippety doo-dah}

...The Eagle River Casino is 60 per cent owned by Alexis and 40 per cent by the Las Vegas-based private casino company, Paragon Gaming....

And, now that we are getting a feel for what grabs folks attention as they are standing on the corner waiting to cross the street, I figure just might the time to get going on a little Van Morrison.

There's lots to choose from - and while I'm not ready to wail on Astral Weeks in public quite yet, I reckon this the tune below might be one that will likely work.

And, on top of that, it is I suppose it does kinda/sorta fit the saint day in question:

______Wondering about the sub-header?...Well....This.In addition to full-on Lotuslandian busking (with licenses!) we're thinking about a little bit of summer travel (which may include house concerts)...Stay tuned.

“The problem is the reclamation part (of the oilsands) there is no reclamation.” - Neil Young

Now.

The finest of the very finest fine folks (who won't say, exactly, where they get their big money from, but who will take your cash through PayPal) then go on to tell us that 'only' 767 square kilometers have been 'disturbed' by tar sands development and then follow that up with a bullet point that 77m (sic) square km is under 'active' reclamation.

Which, according to these most ethical of folks' very own numbers means that 690 square kilometers are NOT under active reclamation.

Which would make Mr. Young at 90% right, even if you accepted the self-declared ethicalists version of things.

Which is a pretty solid grade in most schools, even that Calgary one that plays the big Straussian game in a vainglorious effort to generate the ideological gravitas, if you want to call it that, for much of this stuff.

But....

On their very own website, the high priests and priestesses of ethics are also good enough to point us to the Province of Alberta's site on this matter where we learn that it is actually 844 square km, or 84,395 hectares that have been been ripped up by tar sands development so far.

And how much of that land has the Province of Alberta actually 'certified' as being actually reclaimed?

Why, that would be a grand total of...

Wait for it...

...104 hectares.

Which means that Mr Young was actually 99.9% correct with his statement, as quoted by the high priests and priestesses above.

Which, of course, also means that, despite what the good Mr. Ezra Levant has to say on the TeeVee, Mr. Young was actually more pure than Ivory Snow on this matter.

As for this land under 'active' reclamation dodge that is used as deflector spin on this matter?

Well...

When I heard him talk about this at some length with Jian Ghomeshi this was Mr. Young's real point when he noted that most of the so-called 'active' reclamation that he saw when he, unlike Mr. Ghomeshi, actually visited the Tar Sands was, in his opinion, little more than a cosmetic crock of codswallop.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

______There was something interesting in Mr. Meissner's bit (as posted-up by the VSun at least)...Which is the fact that the second deck of the stenography sandwich came not from the opposition (they were third) but instead from the Lotuslandian proMedia's most omnipresent rolodexian go-to-guy (and former astroturf afficionado), Mr. Jordan Bateman.

Don't know about you but I, for one, was overwhelmed with all the analysis, commentary and, yes, gossip that surfaced in the proMedia this weekend in the wake of what that 'tiny Canadian' living in LA, Ellen Page, said to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation recently.

But...

One thing I rarely heard or read in those 'reports' was are report of what Ms. Page actually said.

So here, for the record, is her address, in its entirety. You will find that is 8 minutes and 37 seconds very well spent.

Here's Harvey O's lede:It stinks! The move of Michael Graydon …. weeks after quitting as the President and CEO of the BC Lottery Corporation … to become President of the company in charge of building a $535 Million casino complex, in which Las Vegas-based Paragon Gaming is a major partner, near BC Place in Vancouver … stinks!

This is not to suggest, at this point anyway, that there’s any evidence Graydon did anything wrong legally: but it stinks because it shows how loose, how lax, how full of holes are the rules, regulations and laws that govern such moves by powerful, prominent officials … allowing them to cash in on their “insider” knowledge so soon after quitting.

It stinks!...

I suggest you click on through because it's a good rant.

And I, for one, am glad that the stench has gotten up Mr. Oberfeld's nose.

But.

Unfortnately, not once does Harvey O. mention the most interesting actions of another BC Liberal appointee who actually had a financial interest in the Las Vegas concern that is now slotted-in to help build and operate the Casino-Industrial Complex next to the BC Place Stadium WHILE HE WAS STILL THE HEAD of the BC Lottery Corporation.

OK?

_____Subheader?....Well...You know...Sometimes it would appear that even Southern men can get things pretty much right, at least metaphorically, when it comes to the latest ongoing goings on in downtown Snooklandia..

Saturday, February 15, 2014

The VSun's Larry Pynn has the story. Here's his lede:Companies planning to build projects such as pipelines and transmission lines stand to receive permits to conduct exploratory research in B.C. parks, according to proposed new legislation introduced Thursday.

Bill 4, the Park Amendment Act, 2014, would allow investigative-use permits to be issued for studies, including for vegetation sampling, fish surveys and low-impact geotechnical studies. Based on the results of the studies, companies would then have to apply for a boundary adjustment if they wanted to proceed with a project through a park...

Now.

Lest you think the flack-hackery has not lined it's (one) duck(s) in a row to muddy all media sound-bite waters, Park-Slayer-In-Chief Mary Polak was ready with this:

...(BC Liberal Government Environment Minister) Mary Polak noted that not all permit applications will be from companies seeking industrial projects.

The Kitselas First Nation near Terrace is seeking an amendment to 269-hectare Kleanza Creek Provincial Park to allow for access to drinking water. Access roads are another potential rationale for a park boundary amendment.

She noted that allowing a small land removal from a park might result in less environmental damage than if a company had to seek an alternative route...

Except, as the Sun's Mr. Pynn was quick to note:

...The Vancouver Sun reported last December that the Ministry of Environment is anticipating applications for boundary adjustments to at least 35 parks and other protected areas to accommodate industrial pipelines, transmission lines and resource roads.

The proposed boundary adjustments — which would amount to new or enlarged industrial corridors slicing through protected areas — were contained within a four-page ministry document dated May 17, 2013 and released through a freedom-of-information request.

According to the document, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion from Alberta to Burnaby could potentially require boundary adjustments to 10 provincial parks, ranging in size from 8.5-hectare F.H. Barber and 32-hectare Bridal Veil Falls, both between Chilliwack and Hope, to large protected areas such as 615-hectare Jackman Flats near Valemount and 15,000-hectare Lac du Bois Grasslands near Kamloops...

Hmmmm....

_______Do you see the reverse peristaltic manoeuver that Mr. Pynn just executed...Perhaps a few of the puffed-up pro-punditry round 'here who have been lulled into swallowing flack hackery/think tank codswallop whole should take note of how it can (and should) be done.And, just for the record (and because I have a memory and I refuse to not use it)...It's not like the BC Liberals have not cut up a park to help fill the pockets of the cronies with treasure more valuable than bitcoin before...Right?

Which is the possibility that many in the proMedia these days may avoid certain stories because they are looking to locate a safe-landing amongst the flack-hackery as more and more members of the former lose their jobs as the ranks of the latter swell.

Saturday, February 08, 2014

A few (and yes, at this point at least, it is still only a few) media wags are noticing that the man who was appointed by the Snooklandians to run the BC Lottery Corporation has suddenly quit and, even more suddenly (surprise!), has gone to work for those finest of the fine finefolks who are building the Snooklandian-subsidized Casino-Industrial Complex next to right next door to the stadium with the $600 million dollar carpet on top.

Here's the ever vigilant Bob Mackin's lede on this Friday before-the-Snooklandian-long-weekend garbage dump story in The Tyee:

Just over a week after he suddenly quit as B.C. Lottery Corporation CEO, Michael Graydon resurfaced as the president of a company planning to build a casino next to BC Place Stadium.

Graydon will join PV Hospitality ULC, a partnership between Paragon Gaming and its financial backer 360 VOX Corporation, on Feb. 11, according to a news release.

Las Vegas-based Paragon Gaming received City of Vancouver approval in 2011 to move its existing Edgewater Casino licence from the Plaza of Nations to land leased from B.C. Pavilion Corporation...

But here's the thing.

What you are not hearing in the sporadic Lotuslandian 'lectronic news division reports on this story (although Mr. Mackin does mention it) is the fact (i.e. it is not made up) that the fine folks from Paragon had a fix in from even before the beginning.

And, worse, in my opinion, what no one seems to care to remember today is the fact (i.e. it is not made up) that the good Mr. Turner, after he suddenly 'quit' the BCLC and became a principal in Paragon, called up the then Campellerian Minister responsible for BC Place and told him that if we (i.e. the public, not the private casino corporation) did not build a $600 million dollar roof next to their proposed casino that the deal, as already consumated, would likely be off.

More specifically, it is a fact (i.e. it is not made up either) that, at least according to the then Minister involved, that Mr. Turner called him up on his cellphone and said that not building a new retractable roof atop the old marsmallow, a roof that was subsequently paid for by you and me (i.e. not a private casino corporation), could very well be a 'deal breaker'.

Honestly (and I say this with all snark phasers turned off and their batteries removed and thrown in the ocean)....

Words alone can no longer express my total dismay at this latest development in the BC Liberal's 13-year-long forced march to cronify literally everything that is, or is not already, nailed down/cut down/mined-out/damned-up and/or fracked-to-kingdom-come in this province.

_____Up next...How wrong, exactly, was Neil Young when he was right about the state of Tar Sands land reclamation?...

And I'll be damned if, just because I'm doing alright these days, that I'm going to let the Snooklandians and their ilk pull up the ladder on all those people just so the ilk and the assorted sundry cronies can get even richer than Richie Rich ever was.

________Latest Sunday Setlist, in which I pine for the Spring (training) time, is....

_____And, finally....If you're still looking for those Holiday Advent Tunes (and judging by hitcounter, which has now crested 150,000, a select group of you are), you can find them if you scroll on down the page... They are also archived, top to bottom.....Here.

Friday, February 07, 2014

From a recent piece titled "Republicans Seek To Tap California Drought For A Political Edge" by Evan Halper in the Los Angeles Times:

WASHINGTON — Beleaguered and outnumbered, California Republicans think they may have found a crucial ally — drought.

Up and down the state's increasingly dry Central Valley, Republicans have pounded away at the argument that Democratic policies — particularly environmental rules — are to blame for the parched fields and dwindling reservoirs that threaten to bankrupt farms and wipe out jobs....

Because, in addition to coming your way on a weird day, there is a wee bit more story mixed in with the songs.

The first part details what Spring Training means to me (and yes, the 'Motel Slant-Six' was a real thing; just ask my 'editor').

The second part involves my thoughts on our Neil.

And a little bit more.

________As for the tunes...Paul Simon (but not what you're expecting)...The Boss...Banjoized Neil....The Mangan.And, if you're interested...The most straightforward account of what Neil's latest tour of the Great White North is all about, from Mr. Young's perspective at least, can be heard in Jian Ghomeshi's (reasonably) long-form interview on 'Q'...You can listen to it here.Image at the top of the post...Redbird teammates S. Musial and C. Flood before the latter challenged the reserve clause for all kinds of reason that made others, but not him, rich....Photo from the always fantastic '90 Feet of Perfection'.Finally....Here's a link to Dan Epstein's stuff...Epstein is the guy who is obsessed with baseball in the double-knit/turf-toe era...Update....Awww Geez...Audio is way harder to fix than linear type...I called Ken Burns 'Ken Read' on the tape when I was talking about his fantastic 'Baseball' documentary...Apologies.
.

Thursday, February 06, 2014

Which are sometimes called 'pocket' or 'little free libraries' where folks in the neighbourhood leave books for each other to read.

For free.

No strings attached.

****

The list was compiled by the GStraight's Miranda Nelson.

Here's the lede to her story:As an avid reader, I adore the many neighborhood book exchanges that have popped up around our city in the last few years.

The concept behind the exchanges is simple: enterprising citizens build a dry storage space, usually visible from the street. Patrons are encouraged to take or leave a book (or two) as they like, which ensures a diversity of titles that rotate fairly quickly over time...I just love the whole idea and execution of these little gems.

(and, of course, it is also most interesting as to which parts of town they aren't located in)